Bike Ride!!!

 Friday, September 20 

We woke up at 7 this morning (SO EARLY). I made eggs for all of us, as we got ready to go on our BIG BIKE RIDE!!!  We packed our umbrella, snacks, homework (useless), money, train discount ticket, jackets, etc.  We met everybody at the train station at 8:30, and we left at 8:52.  We had an hour-long train ride out of the city into the suburbs…it started to get beautiful!!!  The bus ride was relaxing and beautiful.

WARNING:

There are a lot of photos from today.  And there will be even

more once Monika uploads her photos.

Stephanie

Tanner's getup for biking...he got these pants
at the thrift shop yesterday.  All he kept saying:
"Just wait..."

Amy und Haley (MO)

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We got off at this stop and started following the Minerts through a cute little cobblestoned town uphill up tons of stairs (Moni found a cat…she and Steph are obsessed) up to this huge Abbey that is yellow.  

I can’t remember the name.  It is in Melk.  

What we were walking towards for a while...

Cute little town with cobblestones

Moni and her kitty!

Monika

Tweeeeners

Alisha, Claire, Katie, Haley, Amy, Kimber, Monika, Lexi (MO)

Claire, Roger, Jeannie, Stephanie, Tanner, Amy, Garrison, Klint, Alisha, Kimber, Jordan, Kelsee, Caelyn, Mara, Katie, Rachel, Lexi, Monika, Haley (MO)

cutest directors....Jeannie and Roger (MO)

Amy's game day hair

We had an English tour through there for an hour.  First, we went up this grand staircase with pink trim on everything...it was amazing haha.  We got to see historical artifacts...and learn about the monks.  It was interesting, but mainly beautiful!  At the end we got to go in the chapel, which was in use at the moment, and after their meeting we were allowed to take photos.  These are the kinds of places you only SEE pictures of!!  It was crazy to actually be in there…just unreal decoration.  

The back of the chapel...

My favorite Haley

Reppin BYU for game day hahahahah

It rained a bit, and we got lunch in that town.  Caelyn and I split a salami pizza…oh my gosh.  This man with the mustache made it in front of us, and it was only like €5.90…and we split it.  Perfect!  Oh my I could go back there.  Then I got this small pastry, my first pastry of this whole trip!!  What the heck.  It was really good.  Don’t worry.

Stephanie and I (MO)

We walked down all the hills in the rain to this bike place, but our 19 bikes weren’t there!  It’s like a rental place.  So they said it’d be a bit, so we waited on this bridge by the Danube river.  We all just talked and took pictures and enjoyed each other.  We all love each other it is really good.

hangin out, waiting (MO)

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Mariah Carrey jammin

i love this hahaha this picture captures them perfectly (MO)

Finally we got on our bikes!!  Farrad!  And we started riding…!  The first bit was a steeeeep hill and it was really hard for me but it’s okay!  My legs have like no muscle left after this summer.  We rode honestly ALLLLL DAY until after dark (starting time was like 2pm maybe).  We just cruised from town to town, past vineyards—GRAPES EVERYWHERE!  And other fruit places.  There would be buckets of peaches out, and a cup asking for 20 cents or something.  I got one of those.  And we picked some fruit illegally hahahaha a lot.  Moni and Stef had like a backpack full of plums.  I got a pear and plums and grapes and peaches..it was honestly just the best bike ride in the world.  SO beautiful.  I want to retire here.  I need to at least come back and do this bike ride again someday, even though my bum bum is bruised from the seat and I will probably be too sore to move tomorrow.  It was sooo amazing.  The pictures do NOT do it justice.

READY TO GO!!!! (MO)

This is what we had to look forward to.  This is Tan-Cakes

Amy dear

Okay, these might all look the same to you.  I just wanted you to get a feel of HOW GREEN and BEAUTIFUL every moment was!  This was literally all we had to take pictures of.  Oh and these were all taken while riding a bike....in the sprinkling rain (which was perfect) ..but it was difficult!

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At one of our pitt stops, we were waiting for the group behind us, and I wandered around and found a wall by a pear tree and picked this....it wasn't ripe.  But it was still good!!  What a cute little town right!!?

We stopped at this playground because I saw this water faucet, and we needed to fill up our water bottles, and we ended up playing in the playground for a while....it was just Monika, Stephanie, Garrison, Tanner and I.  SO FUN...this zipline!!

One of the few stops we made along the side of the road to steal grapes...hahaha see Tanner stuffing his face.  This is probably so bad, but nobody saw us and we didn't get sick hahah.  And we didn't tell the Minerts.  So many vineyards!

With 6 kilometers left, we stopped and biked up into a town with the cutest little houses...and steep cobblestoned streets.  We climbed a mountain (TOO HARD) to these ruins of a castle where some guy from Robin Hood was held captive, the lion on Robin Hood.  Someone the "Lion-hearted" ......Forgot his name.  We got up there right at sunset!!  It was amazing.  SO BEAUTIFUL.  The Minterts didn’t come up here with us.

Somebody's backyard that we were above....wow.

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Stephanie, me, Lexi, Katie, Mara, Alisha (MO)

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me and Caelyn (MO) 

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Caelyn took this!!! It is awesome oh my goshhhhh.

We got into the town where our train was after dark.  All of us were SO EXHAUSTED.  We had like 20 minutes until our train left so we went into the grocery store in the train station to browse…and all of us came out with chocolates and cakes in our hands hahahahaha nothing healthy, it was so funny.  So the whole train ride we were sharing chocolates and treats and figuring out which we like and which were weird.  YUM.  I was so tired, my feet are dead.  The hiking was not good on them.  Oh well.

We got home, showered up, and will fall asleep pretty soon hopefully!